Name: Salmon Kedgeree
Ingredients: 1 tin of salmon (about 4 lb.); 4 oz. of well-boiled rice; 1 oz. of butter; finely-chopped parsley; salt and pepper to taste; grated nutmeg; 1-2 hard-boiled eggs (optional)

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon Kedgeree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Divide the salmon into large flakes.
Heat the butter in a saucepan and add the rice, stirring until hot.
Season the rice with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then gently fold in the salmon.
Stir gently over low heat for 3-4 minutes.

Serve

Serve on a hot dish, optionally topped with coarsely chopped hard-boiled eggs.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,762 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salmon: Provides the main protein and flaky texture of the dish.
Rice: Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the butter and seasoning.
Butter: Adds richness and carries flavour through the rice.
Hard-boiled eggs: Adds soft, crumbly texture and mild richness as an optional topping.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, rice, butter, parsley, pepper, egg):

Dillfits about as well
Capersfits about as well
Tarragonfits about as well
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, rice, butter, parsley, pepper, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.